Attractive women have lower cortisol

[j.]

Link

 

[jaguar43]

I think ray peat mentions in his book nutrition for women that the mechanism for choosing a sexual partner for specific characteristics to be pass on to the next generation could not have occurred because desirable characteristics were not related to evolutionary values. He goes on to mention that a culture that makes women dependent, will make women more attractive to men of wealth and power.

I am pretty sure that the correlation to cortisol and attrativeness is just the tip of the iceberg.

Plus most of the people they looked at are millionaries, so it would make sense that they have low cortisol.

The last thing it says about attractive women raising the mens cortisol levels is absurd.

 

[j.]

I did read nutrition for women, but it seems I missed that part.

 

[sladerunner69]

Does this really come as a surprise to anyone? Being a hot chick seems about as stress free an existence there could possibly be.

 

[juanitacarlos]

Ha ha hilarious. Thanks j.

 

[ilovethesea]

I wonder if it will work the opposite way too - if we lower our cortisol will we become hotter? :)

 

[Ben]

Cortisol changes facial structure in a certain way. I did notice I like the faces of low-stress women better than those of high-stress women. But that's relatively unimportant if you consider the fact that stressed out people are unattractive regardless of looks. Ask yourself: Have you ever or would you ever possibly find an ugly or fat woman attractive?

 

[charlie]

Ask yourself: Have you ever or would you ever possibly find an ugly or fat woman attractive?

 

[j.]

Have you ever or would you ever possibly find an ugly or fat woman attractive?

There are some sexy fat women.

 

[gretchen]

I have low cortisol; I have to, my waist is barely 25 inches. I'm not that attractive.

 

[HDD]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." " Beauty is as beauty does."

 

[Dave H]

This goes back, I believe, to the "gleam in the mother's eye" (Hans Kohut) when looking at her baby and the electrifying effect this has on the baby. Attractive people draw the gazes of others and this feeds them in certain ways. But I think we can put the cart before the horse here. I have seen very attractive people whose faces have none of the usual markers of beauty, sometimes quite the opposite! We sense an inner harmony and rest in their faces and this draws us to them. Yes, lower cortisol may be part of it, but it is much more complex than that. Arbitrarily calling some women (or men) 'attractive' seems counterintuitive to me, especially in a study that pretends to be scientific. In our society where women have so much more pressure to be "beautiful", a woman can have all the marks of artificial beauty but not be in the least attractive in this deeper sense. God knows, I have seen women whom the press refers to as "beautiful" but leave me thinking, "Huh?"

 

[Kasper]

Attractive men induce testosterone and cortisol release in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19303881

Wait... if a girl sees an attractive man, she releases cortisol, and if she releases cortisol, she become less atractive.

Why would nature make attraction so difficult ? :P

 

[Ben]

I once read that in males, cortisol makes the area between the eyebrows and mouth grow vertically, but I couldn't find the source. I've observed it to be true that stressed out men have longer faces and calm men have shorter ones. In fact, I also observed this to be true for women as well. People with longer faces seem to be more pessimistic and responsible, while the ones with shorter faces are more optimistic and tend to crave fun more. Just like men with large jaws tend to be more assertive and outgoing. However, obviously there is exceptions. There will be a lot when RP's ideas reach mainstream, grown men can bring their testosterone up and drop cortisol, but their faces stay the same. When it comes to testosterone, I believe it should be minimized when we're in a safe society like today, with not much struggle for survival and demand for physical fitness.

My nose seems a little vertically steep, theoretically because I have anxiety, but it's not a classically pessimistic face, just like I'm optimistic despite having anxiety. Looks are only important when determining who to approach in search of sex or relationships. It's a sorting mechanism, so a person has a higher chance of meeting someone fertile. It makes no difference when you already know what a person is like. I personally noticed from meeting so many people and paying attention to detail, that ugly people tend to have a higher incidence of various mental illnesses. Poor physiology can account for both. But don't misinterpret this. It's possible to be ugly and have a good personality, have a small jaw and have a masculine personality, and have a long face and have a chill personality. You can never fully predict nature.

 

[sladerunner69]

I once read that in males, cortisol makes the area between the eyebrows and mouth grow vertically, but I couldn't find the source. I've observed it to be true that stressed out men have longer faces and calm men have shorter ones. In fact, I also observed this to be true for women as well. People with longer faces seem to be more pessimistic and responsible, while the ones with shorter faces are more optimistic and tend to crave fun more. Just like men with large jaws tend to be more assertive and outgoing. However, obviously there is exceptions. There will be a lot when RP's ideas reach mainstream, grown men can bring their testosterone up and drop cortisol, but their faces stay the same. When it comes to testosterone, I believe it should be minimized when we're in a safe society like today, with not much struggle for survival and demand for physical fitness.

My nose seems a little vertically steep, theoretically because I have anxiety, but it's not a classically pessimistic face, just like I'm optimistic despite having anxiety. Looks are only important when determining who to approach in search of sex or relationships. It's a sorting mechanism, so a person has a higher chance of meeting someone fertile. It makes no difference when you already know what a person is like. I personally noticed from meeting so many people and paying attention to detail, that ugly people tend to have a higher incidence of various mental illnesses. Poor physiology can account for both. But don't misinterpret this. It's possible to be ugly and have a good personality, have a small jaw and have a masculine personality, and have a long face and have a chill personality. You can never fully predict nature.

I forget what it's called, but the ratio of the length between a man's eyebrows to lip, divided by the width of his eyes, turns out to be statistically very significant in terms of success and achiement. All presidents and most CEO's have had a ratio >1.3, so a slightly wider face is supposed to demonstrate dominance or something.

 

[SQu]

A few years ago while watching some modern take on a Jane Austen movie I remember being unconvinced by the actress and realized that at least some of it was because she had what looked like a 'modern face'. On trying to think what I meant by a modern face, I thought of the fact that my elder daughter has an 'old fashioned face' - wide cheekbones, roundish shape, firm chin. I thought about actresses in Hollywood now like Gwyneth Paltrow and realized that what I think of as a modern face is long and lacking in bone. The shortage of bone may make the nose seem longer as the jaws, top as well as bottom, are a bit lacking. My younger daughter has this a bit, and had crowded teeth for a few years, but now they fit better as the jaws have grown and I have avoided the 'solution' of the orthodontist: removing healthy teeth (seems like a crime if not absolutely vital!) and braces. Also explains why in some people the changes wrought by braces reverse in time as the teeth just have to accommodate to the space available. There was a PDF I once saw on the whole issue which was fascinating and included mouthbreathing due to poor facial bone development. (My daughter's friend literally cannot breathe through her nose, she's been raised a vegetarian with many allergies.) Here the author made the point that the soft tissues like the nose and also the teeth are 'designed' by the body to fit jaws and facial bones that are 'expected' by the body to be a certain size, but they grow smaller, so you have too much face or teeth for your skull and jaws. It's worth finding that PDF again but I don't remember authors, titles, etc. I am fascinated by the imperceptible changes to things like our standards and icons of beauty that are actually signs of ill health and modern chronic health conditions, that creep up on us unnoticed - until we watch an old movie, say, and start wondering!

 

[tara]

I think I have read somewhere (normalbreathing.com?) that there has been dental research that showed a correlation between mouth-breathing in childhood and growth of a narrower palate, with consequences for fitting all the teeth in. Mouth-breathing (hyperventilation) could plausibly lead to higher cortisol levels, right? An/or possibly vice-versa.

 

[j.]

My younger daughter has this a bit, and had crowded teeth for a few years, but now they fit better as the jaws have grown and I have avoided the 'solution' of the orthodontist:

Apparently vitamin K2 is important to develop the face to accommodate teeth. On forums where people used megadoses of vitamin K2 (45 mg daily), I read anecdotes of older people about having such changes in their faces.

 

[fyo]

Weston Price covers the connection between facial structure and nutrition. Traditional diets yield wide faces capable of easily fitting all the teeth, in near perfect form. The 'modernized' diet yields narrower faces, which often cannot fit all the teeth, resulting in many orthodontic problems.

His book is free online. Its very interesting and appeals to a wide audience, I think. Its one man's exploration of the nutritional world before industrializiation, 'natural laws', traditional wisdom, and dentistry, which is such a common problem in modern societies its taken for granted. The traditional diet, including the primitive technologies employed in their food preparation, was more advanced then than the modern common diet, despite all our advances is technology.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html


Melanesians on traditional diets:

The same peoples, some miles away, on the modern industrial diet:

After becoming familiar with the different face structures, its easy to notice who comes from a traditional dietary background and who does not.

I asked one attractive looking (broad face) guy what the secret to his youthful apperance was, he said it was probably the daily 10+ mangoes he used to eat growing up in flordia, lol.

Price frequently describes the value of the fat-soluable vitamins A, D, K2, which Peat also talks about.

 

[SQu]

Thank you for the K2 tip, j. She hates liver in most forms but will eat chicken liver pate.
I've also read that the jaw issue is not fixed once you're an adult, like teeth and bone generally, improvement is possible.